ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, the country has been subjected to deep-rooted
socio-political and socio-economic change which inevitably has left its mark on the education
system. Because there were just too many inequalities and injustices it made sense that the education
system had to change. There are concerns, however, that the new education system does not deliver
the expected results. The current pool of human capital in the Western Cape does not demonstrate
the knowledge and skills required for the province to implement its socio-economic development
programme(s). Subsequently the human capital development strategy was launched to address
certain challenges in the province, such as the high unemployment rate among youth and the lack
of skills to take advantage of work and entrepreneurial opportunities. The strategy has a threefold
aim namely to improve the following key strands: the conditions of education, the environment
of education and the quality of education, each with its own education foci. In this paper the
current state of post-apartheid education in South Africa with special reference to the Western
Cape is investigated by measuring it against the human capital development strategy. By using
a literature review the following education foci are examined: school management and governance;
basic functionality, school infrastructure and provision of educators; transformation; a positive
school climate; the role of teacher unions; parental involvement; school safety, security and
health; a relevant curriculum; quality of teaching and teacher development; and learner
performance. This is done in order to determine what progress, if any, has been made since 1994
to develop a pool of human capital in the province that will be able to face the challenges of the
new democracy.
During the second phase of this study each focus was investigated by means of a questionnaire
administered at sixty selected primary and secondary schools in the Western Cape. Principals at
these schools were asked to complete the questionnaires because “[q]uestionnaires are a good
way of collecting certain types of information quickly and relatively cheaply as long as subjects
are sufficiently disciplined” (Bell 1998:76). During the design of the questionnaire it was decided
to make use of closed questions because the structure imposed on the respondents’ answers
provides the researcher with information which is of uniform length and in a form that lends itself
nicely to being qualified and compared (Denscombe 1998:101). It was not practical to have the
questionnaire completed by all the schools in the Western Cape. Therefore it was decided to take
the option of a representative sample “because the researcher has some notion of the probability
that these will be a representative cross-section of the whole” (Denscombe 1998:34). The
researcher ensured that the sample was representative of all schools in the Western Cape with
regards to race, previous departments, language and income. It must be taken into consideration
that most schools in the Western Cape cater for the poor and middle class Afrikaans speaking
Coloured1 population. Participating schools came from poor, middle class and wealthy schools.
With regards to the former education departments the sample was representative of former Model
C-schools, (white), Council of Representatives (coloured) and the Department of Education and
Training (black). As far as Language of Learning and Teaching (LoLT) is concerned, both Afrikaans
and English schools as well as double medium schools were included in the survey.
The responses from the principals were compared with the data obtained from the literature
review. From the results it is clear that although the education department has made significant progress with three key aspects of education, i.e. the conditions of education, the environment of
education and the quality of education in the province, there is still some work to be done before
the youth in this province, especially in black schools, will be in a position to take up their rightful
place in a democratic society.